Trafficked women’s presentation of self before the German courts

Abstract

The analysis in this article provides an alternative interpretation of trafficked women’s self-presentation before the courts. I use complete observations of German judges deposing women in camera who are witnesses in criminal proceedings against their traffickers. My objective is to develop and inform a different account of the women’s self-presentation by prioritising the narrative accounts of their ‘lived’ experiences of trafficking. Invoking Judith Butler’s analysis of the complex transactions between subjectification and subversive agency and emerging debates in the health arena in psychosocial theory on resilience, I ask: How is trafficked women’s self-presentation in criminal proceedings an expression of their agency and resilience?